A business tip often overlooked by overworked, distracted franchisees is outsourcing their non-core operations, because often the thought of the process of outsourcing this alone seems like too much for a franchisee with a lot on their plate.

As a franchisor, how easy is it for you to access your company information? Are you among the many who are still managing their data from numerous spreadsheets scattered across your organization? Businesses in all industries constantly struggle to keep their data organized and easily accessible. Don’t let your franchise organization fall into that trap. Educate yourself onsoftware solutionsthat can help.

Running your business is already full of tough decisions – hiring the right employees, partnering with the best vendors, finding the best location and much more.

It’s even more challenging to run a franchise business without proper franchise operations software in place. The goal of a franchise operations software solution is to balance integrity across the organization, functioning as the ‘one source of truth’ to manage the needs and growth of your brand.

Successful franchisors focus a lot of time and energy on creating the framework upon which their business is built. They put a structure and guidelines in place for sales, marketing, training, compliance and more. They know what success looks like for their brand and how to best replicate it, and they share that knowledge with their franchisees so they are positioned to achieve the same—or greater—results.

So what is the one thing we hear over and over from franchisors? They want their franchisees to “follow the process.” After all, a significant amount of R&D, time and energy has gone into creating a roadmap to success. Unfortunately, there are stumbling blocks. Franchisees get detoured by the everyday challenges of running their business. Issues large and small jockey for attention and pull focus from the bigger picture.

Technology can help franchisors and franchisees navigate in the same direction. One of technology’s biggest benefits is its ability to standardize and simplify processes. When ticketing support is built into an automated platform, for example, it allows for seamless assistance and monitoring.

With an easy-to-use franchise management software platform, leaders are able to focus on building and growing their business, not on the minutiae of running it. There are three great examples of simple and intuitive interfaces in action.

Central Operations Software

Who doesn’t want to streamline their day-to-day operations so they can focus more resources on the things that matter most? The goal of a franchise operations software solution is to balance integrity across the organization, acting as one source of truth to manage the needs and growth of a brand and allowing leaders to develop, manage and support their complete multi-location network. Efficiently engaging and reconnecting with your team through centralized operations management is possible when you have easy access to an operations manual manager, document library, real-time chat, project and workflow manager and important event alerts. Reactive decisions can be changed into proactive ones, in real-time.

As more and more studies are conducted, we are further convinced that communication is our society’s most important skill. Effectively speaking, teaching, explaining, disputing or contradicting are among the several key assets that communication holds. These are assets in both personal lives and business professional lives. When it comes to growing a franchise, things are no different, having a tried and true proven strategy is great – but it’s not enough. Make sure you communicate that strategy correctly to make sure all franchisees are understanding your goals for the company.

One thing you need to do in order to stay ahead of the next trend is to keep your eyes wide open and observe what’s advancing around you. Don’t be complacent because that’s where your competitors will catch up to you and potentially put your place in the market at risk.

This interview with Rob Lopez, Director of Franchisee Business Development at The Glass Guru, was conducted by a member of our Product team, named Danny Ramos. The purpose of this interview was to gather more insight and knowledge from the franchisor directly in regard to their main focuses, obstacles and goals. Below, we will be sharing a few of the questions asked during this discussion.

Franchising is a world of its own. When compared to retail stores or restaurants outside of franchising, many of the outwardly visible processes and procedures look similar but when you dive in a little deeper, one quickly learns how different the foundation actually can be. This is exciting for franchisors as they have the liberty to create their own process towards success. But establishing these processes can sometimes be a challenge for the franchisor – where do they begin?